Pooja Ramesh Singh v. Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd. & Anr., 2026 INSC 668
·Supreme Court of India·INOther
India's Supreme Court (Justices Narasimha and Aradhe) set aside NCLT and NCLAT orders that had relied on fake, AI-hallucinated precedents, holding a decision resting even partly on fabricated authority is 'no decision in law'. It adopted a zero-tolerance approach, called citing unverified AI cases advocate misconduct, and asked the Bar Council of India to frame rules.
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Date
- 2026-07-02
- Who used the AI
- Not recorded
- AI tool
- Not identified in the record
- Conduct
- The NCLT and NCLAT decided an insolvency guarantee matter relying on precedents that did not exist — fake, AI-hallucinated judgments, some carrying wrong citations and others wholly invented. The Supreme Court found the tribunals' reasoning rested partly on this fabricated authority.
- Outcome
- Other
- Penalty
- No monetary penalty recorded
- Regulatory outcome
- No separate regulatory disposition recorded
- Status
- Verified against listed sources
- Last checked
- 2026-09-03
What was fabricated or misused
- State Bank of India v. M/s Shree Ram Urban Infrastructure Ltd., 2020 SCC OnLine SC 341 — wrong citation of an existing reported judgment and a non-existent paragraph
- Everest Kento Cylinders Ltd. v. Union of India (2015) 2 SCC 1 — correct citation but non-existent paragraph
- ICICI Bank Ltd. v. Urban Infrastructure Real Estate Ltd., (2019) 16 SCC 528 — non-existent citation
- V.S. Dempo & Co. Ltd. v. Reliance Communications Ltd., (2021) 10 SCC 176 — non-existent citation
- Canara Bank v. N.G. Subbaraya Setty & Anr., (2018) 16 SCC 228 — correct citation but non-existent paragraph
- Sarbjit Singh v. Union Bank of India, (2022) 7 SCC 464 — non-existent citation
What the court said
“It is necessary for Courts to adopt a zero-tolerance mode for producing, citing or using AI-generated precedents without verification.”
“It is a misconduct on the part of an advocate to cite such judgments without verification.”
“It is not in dispute that the judgments relied upon by the NCLT are non-existent, and some AI-generated paragraphs are wrongly attributed to genuine citations.”
“Judicial process and the judgment under challenge are tainted by the usage of materials which are said to be precedents, but in reality, they are unreal, fake, and do not exist at all.”
Timeline
- NCLT admitted the Section 7 application and relied on false precedent.
- NCLAT dismissed the appeal and repeated the NCLT's cited authorities.
- Supreme Court set aside both tribunal orders and restored the insolvency application.
Why this case matters
Unlike lawyer-filed hallucination cases such as Mata v Avianca, this record concerns a tribunal's own reliance on unreal authority. India's apex court treated even indirect reliance as fatal: a judgment with any fake precedent is no decision in law. That links the matter to Buckeye Trust, KMG Wires and Sammaan Capital, but at Supreme Court level. It also turned an individual insolvency appeal into a national professional-governance issue by directing the Bar Council of India to consider rules and discipline for advocates who submit fake AI material.
Practice note
Before citing or relying on authority in tribunal or court reasons, the citation and the paragraph used must be checked in an official reporter or database. If AI helps research, a person must verify that the case exists, the citation matches, and the quoted paragraph appears in the judgment. The Supreme Court's rule is strict: even an iota of fake material can require set-aside.
Primary sources for this incident
Related regulation records for this incident
- Draft Regulations for Use of Artificial Intelligence in Courts, 2026Supreme Court of India · IN
- Policy Regarding Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools in District JudiciaryKerala High Court · IN
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Cite this record
SafeLegalAI Global Legal AI Incident Tracker, “Pooja Ramesh Singh v. Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd. & Anr., 2026 INSC 668”, safelegalai.com/tracker/pooja-ramesh-singh-v-jk-bank (accessed 2026-09-16). Data: CC BY 4.0.